Saturday, September 17, 2016

The Building History Map

The Survey of London Whitechapel has released a fascinating interactive map which allows you to learn more about the histories of Whitechapel's buildings. The map allows you to click on any building in this East End neighborhood to learn about when the building was constructed and how it has been used.

Over the last few years there has been a big trend to map the age of buildings in cities around the world. The Survey of London map has taken this concept to the next level by mapping not just the age of buildings but also the individual histories of each Whitechapel building, including details of how each building has been used over time.

If you click on a building footprint on the map a small information window appears showing a picture of the building, its year of construction and a link to the building's full history. For example if you select the building outline of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry on the map you will see that it was built in the 1740's. If you click on the 'Read More' link you will discover that the business has been making bells at this address since the 16th Century and it is ‘Britain’s oldest manufacturing company’.

Each building on the map also includes a button to 'Add Content'. This button allows local people to add historical details, photos or memories of the building to the map.

The Survey of London Whitechapel map includes a number of different base map layers. This allows you to view the building footprints on top of a modern OS map of the neighborhood or on a vintage 1746 map of London or on top of an 1873 Ordnance Survey map.